After saying that I would never attend these awards my buddy Lee at Inversion Addicts twisted my arm and I attended an awards ceremony that I absolutely didn’t deserve to be at as the winners of the UK theme park awards 2022 were announced.
More than 200,000 votes were cast and combined with the scores from Expert Judges
22 categories including Theme Park of the Year, Best New Attraction and Best Value.
On the day Alton Towers was named theme park of the year, SIK at Flamingo Land was voted the best new attraction and Gangsta Granny thankfully didn’t win the best UK dark ride.
For the third year, the British public were able to vote for their favourite theme parks in these national awards recognising the best rides and attractions, shows and events.
The awards were organised by ThemeParks-UK.com, an independent consumer guide to UK theme parks. This year, the awards were presented in association with AttractionTickets.com
There were 22 categories this year, including Theme Park of the Year, Best Customer Service and Best Value. New categories included Best Steel Coaster, Best Wooden Coaster and Best Mascot.
I have my reasons but after visiting many awards with my film site I just decided to stay away from them, until now. But after attending I’m glad I didn’t as the arrogance and excessive pageantry of the ones I’ve been to in the past wasn’t present here. It felt sociable, and down to earth.
Whilst I still felt out of place it was much more manageable than the bougie Hollywood rubbish I’ve attended in the past.
204,501 public votes were combined with the scores from the judging panel to determine the winners in each category. Of the 30 theme parks that received nominations, 18 won awards.
The Drayton Manor Hotel had such a lovely aura to it and was the perfect location for an event such as this. The attendance was great and the celebration of content creators and the attractions themselves in the same room together was pretty great.
I must say you could instantly tell who was who with the content creators all sitting around one table huddled together in a familiar bubble.
The food spread was incredible and the goodie bag too, thank you to all the sponsors of the event and of course Theme Parks UK for organising such a wonderful celebration.
The event was attended by more than 100 representatives from the UK theme park industry. A recording of the awards ceremony will be available to watch at ukthemeparkawards.com
The biggest winners in the awards included Alton Towers and Drayton Manor in Staffordshire (with 11 and 6 awards respectively), Blackpool Pleasure Beach in Lancashire (7), LEGOLAND Windsor in Berkshire (6), Paultons Park in Hampshire (4) and Thorpe Park in Surrey (5). Other UK theme parks with multiple awards included Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey (2), Crealy in Devon (3), Adventure Island in Essex (3) and the various Gulliver’s Theme Parks (2).
For theme park content creators, there were also awards for Blogger of the Year, YouTuber of the Year and Instagrammer of the Year.
Check out my vlog of the event below:
Victoria Lynn, Managing Director of Drayton Manor Resort, said:
“We’re thrilled to have hosted the UK Theme Park Awards this year, and equally delighted to have been shortlisted for 13 awards ourselves!
“The UK Theme Park Awards are a fantastic opportunity for parks and attractions across the country to come together to celebrate, learn and champion one another, while also recognising the efforts of the teams working hard behind the scenes to ensure the UK’s theme parks are some of the top destinations for a day out.
“Here at Drayton Manor Resort, we work incredibly hard to ensure our guests enjoy a fun-filled day out each time they visit, and to see this recognised by the public vote, allowing us to take home 6 awards this year, really is fantastic.
“I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who voted for us, and to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the entire Drayton Manor team, who work incredibly hard to make the resort a brilliant UK attraction.”
The full list of winners is available at ukthemeparkawards.com
